Lyrics are super hard. Might be fun to have a whole thread dedicated to folks and their struggles and successes with it. Suffice to say, my efforts doing lyrics require a LOT of editing and rewrites. It's sometimes a rather technical exercise, finding phrases and rhymes that work, and of course trying to assemble it into a 3 verse narrative, and let's not forget the catchy chorus! Really daunting, especially when you're looking at a blank sheet of paper!

One of the reasons I'd love to get a collab going with someone is because I'm really happy with handling lyrics, and enjoy the process of finding cadences and melodies. It's a shame I'm so traditionally, profoundly unmusical otherwise!

I relate to this big time. I wanted to record an album this year - or at least a demo via Audacity - and that didn't happen.

Part of it is self-esteem shit, but also, melodies are hard. Lyrics aren't as hard, I have lots of ideas.

I used to play piano multiple times a day, I'd wake up a half hour before work with some coffee and do 30 minutes, but my left hand has gotten wonky - my thumb will bend towards my palm when I play or type, and I can't play as smoothly as I used to (happens when I type too). Went to orthopedics and a neurologist, not much they can do except an MRI, and that's a long shot.

Lately I've been playing acoustic guitar again, just sitting down for 30-45 minutes a night (sometimes longer or shorter, depending on the day) and trying to play better, learning chord patterns, figuring out where the notes are, that kind of technical stuff. That keeps me happy and motivated enough, because if I don't play music or I skip consecutive days, I get depressed and sad (unless I'm out of town on vacation).

I try to just keep going.

When it comes to making things, alone or with others, there's often a kind a duality at play, in that it can help to treat a creative pursuit like a job, in order to get going, but there also have to be some elements of fun and free will involved. Meaning that while there might be sacrifices to be made, a lot of "work," etc., if I felt that I was creating something out of obligation, then things could run the risk of turning rote pretty quickly. So the balance between purposefulness and playfulness has to be there on some level. If it's not, that's usually a sign I'm headed in the wrong direction, just going through the motions.

I haven’t really written music in about ten years, but I haven’t had time to try much either. But the following has worked in the past or more recently for other project.

Staring at a blank screen with no bits to use? Get away from the computer. Change your environment. Friend have a weird basement? Grab a guitar, amp, and a handheld recorder. Play an acoustic and have nature around, drive out to a spot. Don’t think about it too much.

Make “notes.” That could mean cellphone recordings of riffs or pen and paper notes about ideas. Combine this with the above. I’ve broken writer’s block (as in English language writing) several times by ditching the computer, grabbing pen and paper and sitting in some waiting room or park bench I don’t visit normally. Jot down the emotional center you want to hit, guiding concepts, structural, or timbral goals. Don’t have any? Make some. Maybe think of existing music that exemplify anything in that list, note it. Then maybe swap the inspirational bits of multiple sources around. Maybe you want the sort of unrelenting drumming of one band/album/song but a dense layered guitar thing from another and the production sound of yet another. Boom, you’ve got a conceptual outline.

It feels best when you pick up the guitar and just “turn on the tap,” but most up us can do that rarely at best. So use little gimmicks.

Got tons of bits/ideas/riffs? I saw a video of a mixed media collage artist (I wish I could recall her name.) She kept folders of “sketches,” abstract paint marks, and magazine clippings. Every so often she’d open a folder, combine bits, and brutally and quickly judge what she liked most and tossing the rest into trash or later piles. From what was left she’d keep combining and breaking down, maybe adding fresh bits, until she was getting to a final work. Beefheart used to record all these little piano bits and the guitarist would (excruciatingly) annotate them and the band would start working them into songs. This is a little out there for normal music but even if you do this at the conceptual stage or only use me or two stages, it can get you started.

I’m actually much more at home with visual art, but I use tactile methods to sure up my prose writing. I write, even with pen and pad, chunks and then lay the chunks on the floor and decide how to order them. Then I just finish writing to make them connect in that order. It may not be efficient for good writers, but it gets m where I need faster than trying to do it the correct way.

Break shit up. Change your space. Use a handy recorder. Write on an unfamiliar instrument. Record and wrap it up later. Always be willing to toss something away for later or never or change it radically based on immediate aesthetic judgment. Take breaks to go running, cook, shower, poop, paint. Keep breaks under 30 minutes and active.

Don’t fiddle with gear or the computer unless it is actively making sound, like letting feedback howl or droning notes. Seriously, get some paint or ink and paint abstractly and be ready to drop it and grab an instrument.

VaticanShotglass wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 10:07 am Jot down the emotional center you want to hit, guiding concepts, structural, or timbral goals. Don’t have any? Make some. Maybe think of existing music that exemplify anything in that list, note it. Then maybe swap the inspirational bits of multiple sources around. Maybe you want the sort of unrelenting drumming of one band/album/song but a dense layered guitar thing from another and the production sound of yet another. Boom, you’ve got a conceptual outline.

This is basically how I've written the last couple albums I've done. You say, "What if Song A that I like was in a different key, and then it could have a chorus kind of like Song B which would be an awesome twist."

The problem with songs that are a lightning strike is they give you the sounds and the feelings in one exciting moment. Sometimes you have to start with a little puzzle, and then you start hearing sounds that give you feelings, and then it stops being simply an exercise and starts being a song.

Neil Young is welcome to whatever creative philosophy he enjoys, but there really is no precise relationship between how much or little toil something took and how good it is. It's just not that simple. The ease or difficulty of creating the song playing on my turntable has no bearing on my enjoyment of it. The mathy prog folks will delude themselves into thinking backbreaking labor will be responsible for their magnum opus, and the slacker rock people will be sure not to spend too much time on something because that's their recipe for triumph but those are negotiations people make with their process to try and remove the uncertainty of making things. Sometimes shit can be underbaked, sometimes it can be overwrought and the real challenge is honing (and trusting) your instincts to tell the difference.

Also how something feels to play, and how great it sounds can be incongruent. The only time you discover the outcome is playback. I've had parts that just flowed out of the band and felt amazing, effortless and engaging. Upon playback it was revealed that it was kind of a boring listen. Or visa versa, sometimes parts that were just a little subconscious arrangement, or a personal musical tic from one of the members turn out to be the most winning part of the song.

Great post ^

I think that Neil Young story is the sort of thing that is amazing and will make most people feel sick if they think about it too much.

If I were to get back into playing, I think I'd explore some automatic composing stuff. I like odd experimental music, so that won't likely work well for conventional songwriting, but it could be a way to interest me in learning more technical music stuff.

This is basically how I've written the last couple albums I've done. You say, "What if Song A that I like was in a different key, and then it could have a chorus kind of like Song B which would be an awesome twist."

If I had time/access, the project I'd want to do could be described something like this: Something oppressively noisy and heavy, mix throbbing gristle repetition, Big Black drums, glitchy granular synthesis, doomy drone bitcrushed guitar, Kieth Rowe sounds but distorted, layered loops.

losthighway wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:20 pm I love (and hate) writing lyrics, but it takes way longer than writing music. The practices for productivity with lyrics are a little different for me. Lots of phone memos, scraps of paper, dog eared pages of books. When I read less, writing lyrics gets harder. I like how it requires topical curiosity to keep producing.

Same here. Lyrics are almost never about how I'm feeling, but what I just read about. And how I felt about whatever THAT was/is.

Dylan wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 7:14 pm

losthighway wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:20 pm I love (and hate) writing lyrics, but it takes way longer than writing music. The practices for productivity with lyrics are a little different for me. Lots of phone memos, scraps of paper, dog eared pages of books. When I read less, writing lyrics gets harder. I like how it requires topical curiosity to keep producing.

Same here. Lyrics are almost never about how I'm feeling, but what I just read about. And how I felt about whatever THAT was/is.

I can't write songs for shit, but if I did, this is how it would go. I love being inspired by reading. I've helped write minimal lyrics before, and I've helped write riffs and chord changes but never put my own lyrics to my own instrumentation.

I always had the lyrics down first and the just crammed the chords & other parts into them. Prob why my songs always were wrong.